Got home this afternoon to find my bees still in the hive and all clustered up on the first three topbars. Hopefully they will be up there making comb already but at this stage there was to much activity to see the bar face itself.

Those in the box had joined the rest of them and all seems to be going to plan

Just have to sneak out tonight and finish off enclosing the rest of the base so I am ready to extend their living quarters with more bars as required as it is a big swarm and I don't expect it will be long before they build and fill these ten bars with the current nectar flows around.

Been away for the week and came back to find the bees have been busy. You can now clearly see the new combs on the top bars. Will open up the hive in the next few days to make sure all the combs are straight and check that they are not building comb between the bars (cross comb).

My bees are cranking, olives are flowering madly at the moment and the bees are loving it. There is a real stong smell of wax and honey around the hive now, have expanded the hive by adding a few extra top bars as they ahve already built full comb on 10 of them. I need a smoker, if anyone spies an old one in an opshop or similar please give me a yell.

I need a smoker, if anyone spies an old one in an opshop or similar please give me a yell

I read some where that you can achieve the same results as a smoker by disolving sugar in water and spraying them with a fine mist of the solution via a spray bottle. Apparently they can't resist licking the sugar of themselves and as a result leave the Pooh Bear alone.

I need a smoker, if anyone spies an old one in an opshop or similar please give me a yell

I read some where that you can achieve the same results as a smoker by disolving sugar in water and spraying them with a fine mist of the solution via a spray bottle. Apparently they can't resist licking the sugar of themselves and as a result leave the Pooh Bear alone.

Might be worth a google

Simo I use a sugar water solution already and they love it, it certainly does passify them. Problem is they move to wherever the solution has landed. I need a smoker to push them down into the hive when I remove a bar as they come up to see what is happening, not angry at this stage just a little disturbed but when you try and put the bar back in it has a tendancy to squash bees if you can't get them to go back in first and any squashed bee releases a distress pheremone and then the dive bomber squad come

Burnsy - can you tell me how you got that thing out of the tree and into the box? And then managed to get just the bees in the hive?

Out of the tree: Hold a box under the swarm and give the branch a good sharp shake, they all fall into the box like a ball of baked beans. Leave the box open under the branch until any flyers and scouts return to join the queen who should now be in the box (usually leave it like this till dusk. I cheated and did it at night time when they were all already there but apparently this is not good for the bees, don't know why and it worked for me

Into the hive:Tip the box upside down and shake them into the hive, this was the hard part as my box was to big to handle easily. When they are swarmed together around the queen they kind of pour (like baked beans). Once most are in you sit the box with the remainder under the hive and those flying around or still in the box will find the queen and join her in the hive - as long as you got her in

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